


Put Me In The Ground

by Lapin



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, It goes on, Love, M/M, Memories, life - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapin/pseuds/Lapin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is on one quiet afternoon that Frodo, young, innocent child he is, asks, very matter-of-factly, “Uncle, why aren't you married?”</p><p>And all Bilbo says is, “Because I am not.”</p><p>That is the truth, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put Me In The Ground

**Author's Note:**

> A/N Tolkien. Dude. Why do you kill the characters I like so consistently.  
> I just don't understand.
> 
> Disclaimer: The title is from the 2012 single "Better Dig Two" by The Band Perry.

It is on one quiet afternoon that Frodo - young, innocent child he is - asks, very matter-of-factly, “Uncle, why aren't you married?”

And all Bilbo says is, “Because I am not.”

It has been many years, far too many while the villagers' tongues have wagged over Bilbo Baggins and his bachelor ways, over Bilbo and his adventures, over Bilbo and Gandalf and all sorts of nonsense that is none of their concern. Far too long of Bilbo hearing himself called wrong, called queer, far too many years of dreaming of a place he was never in and wondering how their tongues would wag if things had gone right for him, for all of them. 

When it had first gone wrong, when Bilbo had been still young, still angry and grieving, when the gossip had grown hard and Bilbo had been equally parts isolationist and revolutionary, wanting to behave in a most un-Hobbit like way, wanting to shout at their petty minds that no, no, don't dare condescend to him, because if things had gone right, if things had gone well, there would be no room in their envious hearts for _pity_. There had been a time there when Bilbo would have screamed his bachelorhood for all to hear and to comprehend, a state with no chance of change now, a state he was almost proud of. 

But by the time Frodo asks, Bilbo is no longer young and angry. The anger has faded as he has aged, until now, when all he has is left in his heart is a quiet kind of sadness, a sadness that lets him say, “Because I am not.”

Frodo is young enough to accept the answer for what it is. 

Bilbo is grateful for that.

Sometimes, when the sun shines through the leaves of the trees near the Shire, Bilbo can pretend that he is once again in the woods, sleeping under the sunlight, with a warm body against his. Sometimes, it almost feels real. He can pretend he is again young and half-innocent, that there is an arm around his waist, a beating heart against his back, and he can pretend, for just an instant, that he hears the laughter of the early-risers and the groans of the now-roused late-risers, and yes, for just that one moment, he can hear, “I only need _one_ heir, I can just murder the loudest,” and he can remember how he laughed and said, “You do just need the one,”

But Frodo takes so much of his time that his pretense becomes a luxury, an indulgence he only allows on days when the hurt is closest to the surface. The wound has never healed, he knows, will never scar and allow him to move on with his life. This he acknowledges, and that is why he turns his eyes from any other Hobbit who gazes at him too openly, who unrepentantly flirts over a pint, or even more boldly, asks for his own intentions. 

All he can say, after a time, is that he is committed to his bachelorhood, and eventually, young Frodo becomes a built-in excuse. 

He hears the rumours about him, and cares not. 

When Frodo asks, Bilbo only says, “Because I am not,” because the truth is so much more grand and selfish and wrong. How does one say, because I once loved a king, and no one else will ever compare? How does he say, because a king once loved me, and all others have paled in comparison? That the one I loved was a warrior, honorable and admirable and great, far too great for a small Hobbit from the Shire, and yet he turned his eyes to me, and loved me like no one else ever could? The words he once wished to shout in anger to all the prying eyes, the fantasies in which he screamed and grieved and broke for all to hear and see, where he told them that had things gone right, they would have bent at the knee to him and his lord husband, they could not shape themselves into anything a young Hobbit like Frodo could understand. 

And how could Bilbo, who would have been declared consort to a king, who had been promised the whole of Erebor and more importantly, the whole of its king, ever look at another and find an equal? His king had had no equal in this life, at least not in Bilbo's eyes, and perhaps his were the ones with which to judge by. He had loved his king best, after all. 

“Because I am not,” he says, and he thinks about how, if things had gone right, Frodo would be almost as good as a prince now, though not one in title. No, not a prince, but the crown prince and his brother would have spoiled Frodo rotten, given in to his every whim and fancy just to spite Bilbo, and he would have allowed it with a grumble swiftly eased by a hand on his waist, and a quiet, “Where is the harm?”, for his king did love to indulge the crown prince and prince, and he would indulge Frodo as well. 

It would have fallen to Bilbo, after the years had softened his lord, to enforce discipline among the lot, and his lord would have only smiled, though perhaps he would have been the force behind Bilbo's words, enough to bring all three into order.

It's a nice fantasy, but it is neither quiet nor small, for in this fantasy Bilbo is again what he was all those years ago, in everything but law. Consort to a king, far too high for a Hobbit to aspire. Yet it was not a fantasy, was it? It had been his reality, in smoky camps, a world his king had built for him with just his words, a world for all of them, and yet, just the two of them.

_“You will have to lie on your back to see the ceilings of our rooms, they are so high, inlaid with gold and ivory from the horns of oliphants.” Pride and longing echoed in these words._

_“Will I be often on my back, my lord?” Because Bilbo had once possessed a sharp tongue, before it had been blunted by time and grief and age,_

_“Only when not on your knees, but the tile is marble and gold leaf.” A laugh, deep and amused._

_So Bilbo had said, “The bed had better be laid with silks and velvets, and you had better take me there if you are to have me on my knees, my lord, or you will not have me at all, understand?”_

_“The finest silks, from where the Sun touches the Earth, soft as a cloud on your delicate Hobbit knees,”_

_“Oh?” Bilbo had asked, teased really._

_“The finest silks and velvets for you, my love.” And that had been new, but even now, when it was old, it still made his heart flutter. “You will wear only the best, as my consort. A crown made of silver, inlaid with emeralds and opals and diamonds. I would forge it myself for you, would shape it with my own hands. No one could do better than me, and I would allow no other to make you such a thing. No one else would deserve the task.”_

_“That smacks of possessiveness,”_

_“Am I not to be possessive of you?”_

_Bilbo had not laughed, nor had he smiled. Instead, he had cupped that beloved face in his small hands and said, “You are to be as possessive of me as I am of you.”_

_“And how possessive of me are you, Master Baggins?”_

_His fingers had knotted in the dark hair as he breathed, “If I see another tavern maid with her hands on your braids, you will be very lonely.”_

_And his lord had laughed._

And Bilbo's hands remember weaving braids, even now when they settle on his pipe. He remembers a warm lap, remembers being straddled across those thighs in just his nightshirt as he braided grey and black hair into love knots he had been painstakingly taught as a form of courtship he had failed to understand until it was almost too late. He remembers the way his breath had caught when he'd finished, the way his lord had murmured, “And now you shall earn this right, my burglar,”

And his body remembers the ache of lovemaking, of a body poised above his, strong and sure and saying, “So small, my Hobbit, I worry I will break you.”

He never had, of course. 

“Because I am not,” he says.

And innocent Frodo says, “All right.”

That night, like a thousand other nights, Bilbo dreams of his king, and hands on his body, and he dreams of a young Frodo given confidence by way of two boisterous princes. He dreams of his king, and his princes, and his friends.

“Because I am not,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Why Tolkien. Just why. Not cool, dude.


End file.
